From the Chicago Field Museum Climate Exhibit: CO2 makes Poison Ivy grow. Yes, but what about the millions of other plants in the biosphere that is booming? What about agriculture? I really resent this sort of one sided presentation foisted on children that won’t know any better.
Watch this YouTube video showing how a Cowpea plant responds to increased CO2 levels. Most any plant will react in much the same way:
And it gets worse.
Kids can now buy Carbon Credits at the museum from the flatlining Chicago Climate Exchange, which Gore and Pachauri are advisers for.
They may as well just throw their money down the toilet as CCX is now in EPIC FAIL mode. Sure, take money from the kids, why not?
The months of flatlining at the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) should be a hint to the rest of the world that carbon trading is dead. Time to take it off life support. Even at 10 cents a ton, nobody wants it. At it’s peak in July 2008, it traded for $7.50 per ton of CO2.
Chicago Climate Exchange close on June 30th, 2010 – click for source
See who is on the CCX advisory board here
And there is lot’s more. How ’bout that Malaria Myth?
The Field exhibit promotes the theory that global warming will cause increased
incidence of malaria. Thatʼs a powerful scare story – global warming, then malaria in
Chicago. In the early days of settlement there was a lot of malaria in the Midwest.
According to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy:
Willis F. Dunbar in “Michigan: A History of the Wolverine State,” writes that the disease “was so prevalent that it was rather unusual to escape it.”
According the Paul Reiter, a malaria expert, malaria was a serious problem in Britain during the very cold period in the 1600ʼs known as the little ice age. Malaria, called ague, was mentioned 13 times in Shakespeareʼs plays.
Experts on malaria and other mosquito borne diseases have been fighting a losing battle with global warming believers. The idea that global warming will promote malaria is too good a scare story to let the facts get in the way. Nine malaria experts published a letter in the June, 2004 Lancet with the title: “Global warming and malaria: a call for accuracy.”
Above: Malaria endemicity in 1900 (a, top) and 2007 (b, middle) by increasing severity category. The difference in endemicity (c, bottom) from 1900 to 2007 indicates worsening malaria in red areas and improvements in blue (Gething et al., 2010).
If you give this issue a moment of thought, this result should be obvious. Of course malaria is not as bad now as it was 100 years ago. Global health interventions have reduced the problem significantly.
We covered it here on WUWT.
Gore, like the Field Museum, still pushes the factual errors associated with this. See here.
You can read all about the Chicago Field Museum Climate Exhibit in a July 5th walk through report (PDF) by Norman Rogers of www.climateviews.com who has now earned a place in my blogroll. Some of the other exhibit photos are similarly stunningly stupid.
h/t to Tom Nelson
Beth Cooper says:
July 18, 2010 at 1:05 am
If you have an email address, why not present it here?
I want to see some comments on this from the regular AGW believers who come to WUWT. I wait for your response to this post. Bear in mind that the biosphere is greening at the moment in response to increased human induced co2 and bearing in mind all the things you ate for breakfast lunch and dinner. :o(
CO2 makes poison ivy grow, and Roundup makes it stop growing.
I see a good idea brewing. If we could just eliminate all CO2 then we’d have no more poison ivy, no more warm weather, lots more ice and glaciers, more polar bears, and maybe even the wooly mammoth will come back?
What about poison oak and poison sumac? Do they grow a lot with more CO2? I think I’m going to write a research proposal and find out.
I haven’t checked yet…but isn’t there a public comment section on their website?…should be a way to provide feedback to them regarding the “scientific accuracy” of their exhibit.
I’d love to see them have to retract some of this garbage…
JimB
I must have missed this. Have you got an exact source for this wonderful piece of misinformation.
No… I thought not. There isn’t one, because no-one is actually saying that all CO2 is bad.
Just like most CO2 lovers – when the facts don’t match, just make up some new ones!
Here is a paper about the photosynthetic process. The words “carbon dioxide” or “co2” appear at least 48 times. Yet Gore et al are prepared to openly LIE and call it a toxin at its current atmospheric levels which it is not. Breath in and out of a plastic bag and it will be toxic. Drink too much water too fast and water will be toxic.
http://www.life.illinois.edu/govindjee/paper/gov.html
The poison ivy story above will produce a new generation of AGW sceptics.
Carbon credit for a dollar is correct as admistration fees kick in.
You honestly think every penny for carbon credits will not have some tax or admistration fee attached?
Pretty expensive air they are selling when sold by the molecule!
Look at the CO2 you own under the microscope! Put a name to you pet CO2.
IF IT LOOKS LIKE A SCAM, SMELLS LIKE A SCAM, IT IS A SCAM!!!
Hmmm…I wonder if I can sell O2 the same way….hmmm…(The Oxygen Exchange)?
Yes but says:
It’s all propaganda you fool. Check the science your friends are spouting. Go look and educate yourself.
David L says:
Nice idea but I don’t know how even to master race could stop the seas outgassing, the land, the volcanos etc etc etc. 😉
Yes but says:
July 18, 2010 at 2:14 am
It’s always interesting of course that WUWT always seems to never give the full story.
(1) never report the results of Free Air Carbon Dioxide Experiments (FACE) which show much less response than the beloved cowpea in a luxurious environment showing none of Liebig’s minima.
(2) CO2 isn’t Jack’s beanstalk – not enough water – doesn’t matter
(3) CO2 fertilisation will reduce protein yields in wheat – is that what CO2 lovers want?
(4) increased CO2 in the atmosphere means more cold injury from frost
(5) and CO2 will preference natural woody species – trees and shrubs in savanna woodlands choking out C4 grasses – is that what CO2 lovers want
Yes but you don’t give us the full story either.
Your point (3) Actually WUWT has covered this – see here. What research by the UC Davis group also says here is that nitrate was a less effective fertiliser than ammonium at elevated CO2 (700ppm). Since ammonium is the form of nitrogen found in natural fertilisers such as animal manures and is abundant the organic lobby should be happy! No protein reduction with ammonium as fertiliser either. Full paper here
(4) I assume you are extrapolating more CO2=warming=earlier bud burst, but with no reduction in the risk of early frosts? That is too many ifs for me. We don’t know what will happen.
(5) Averaged over all the FACE experiments the greatest benefits of elevated CO2 were accrued by trees. Sorgum was one C4 crop that showed the least benefit. May I remind you that C4 metabolism in plants evolved providing competitive advantage in elevated temperatures and drier conditions. Yes C4 plants are less able to take advantage of high CO2 but without irrigation – in natural grasslands, water often limits tree growth. As you said in (2) – not enough water – doesn’t matter.
Say, YES BUT, Where are your references?? You got real evidence? (snide comment deleted)
Yesbut @ur momisugly 2:14 AM
It is clear that CO2 fertilizes plants. What this will do in our biosphere is not well characterized at present, but I’m here to tell you that there is a 4,000 to 1 imbalance of funding between alarmist and skeptic camps, and your research is from the heavy end of the Teeter-Totter.
It seems that CO2 is such a weak greenhouse gas that it won’t even keep us warm during the coming cooling. Thank Gaia that CO2’s powerful effect on crop fertility will keep millions from starving to death.
================
I hear CO2 makes food grow. But that’s just a rumor I am sure.
The regime wants a smart grid.
Now we have smart carbon that feeds noxious weeds more than beneficial plants.
I suppose this carbon makes snake meaner and piranhas hungrier.
Blantant bias really does make the carbon crisis movement look more ignorant.
The $1 carbon offset is likely the cheapest souvenir you can buy at the museum. And, just think, if the kids put it in a safety deposit box it will have a “antiques roadshow” value. That is, if they live to be, say, age 600.
“See who is on the CCX advisory board here”
Apart from Pachauri & his OIL interests as an advisor to Glorioil I see:
“Ed Begley Jr. has been considered an environmental leader in the Hollywood community for many years. ”
“Lucien Bronicki is the chairman of Ormat International, an Israeli company in the field of innovative technology solutions to geothermal power plants, power generation from industrial waste heat, and solar energy projects. ”
“Elizabeth Dowdeswell is internationally recognized for her global and highly diverse experience in building consensus and managing change……..a former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).”
“Michael Polsky is the founder, President and CEO of Invenergy. Invenergy specializes in developing, acquiring and owning various power generations with an emphasis on renewable resources.”
“Michael Zammit Cutajar is a former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. “
David L: July 18, 2010 at 3:43 am
What about poison oak and poison sumac? Do they grow a lot with more CO2? I think I’m going to write a research proposal and find out.
Add deadly nightshade and wolfbane to the proposal, too — might as well make it real scare-fest…
Why not exchange forests of poison ivey on CCX as an offset since it is a more efficient consumer of CO2 and stays green year round. The “green” organizations are banking on the offsets being made into law.
Just because CO2 makes a plant grow faster doesn’t mean that makes it better…
I have kids that are national merit scholars. The country still cranks out some awesome students. This garbage helps kids to distrust the system. My kids have been to the Smithsonian and countless museums and displays of nature and history. I have devoted time to telling how some of these statements come about and the psychology behind the propogandists. This actually improves their curiosity and suspicion makes for better science.
What do you tell a kid when he finds out that his science book was involved in dubious messaging and not scientific at all?
Now kids are being told that with warming, Santa is having a meltdown and this melt will hamper Christmas. Can anyone unpack this? Is Santa involved in environmental, social and economic justice stunts?
It’s Lie-swatting Time again.
First Lie:
Carbon dioxide is “pollution”.
The liars describe carbon dioxide as “global warming pollution.” It is not.
It is food for plants and trees. Tests have shown that even at concentrations 30 times those of the present day even the most delicate plants flourish. For example, well-managed forests, such as those of the United States, are growing at record rates because the extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is feeding the trees. Carbon dioxide, in geological timescale, is at a very low concentration at present. 500,000,000 years ago it was at 7,000 parts per million by volume, about 18 times today’s concentration.
Next Lie:
Mosquitoes are “climbing to higher altitudes”.
The liars say that, because of “global warming”, mosquitoes are climbing to higher altitudes. They are not.
Most recent outbreaks have been at lower levels than those of a century and more ago. The liars also say that Nairobi was founded 1,000m above sea level so as to be above the mosquito line. It was not.
In the period before man-made global warming could have had any significant effect, there were ten malaria outbreaks in Nairobi, one of which reached as far up as Eldoret, almost 3,000m above sea level.
Let’s make this perfectly clear; Malaria is not a tropical disease.
Mosquitoes do not need tropical temperatures: they need no more than 15°C to breed. The largest malaria outbreak of modern times was in Siberia in the 1920s and 1930s, when 13 million were infected, 600,000 died and 30,000 died as far north as Arkhangelsk, on the Arctic Circle.
And there’s no reason to suppose that malaria will spread even if the climate continues to become warmer (which it won’t).
Next Lie:
Many tropical diseases are being “spread through global warming”.
The liars say that, as well as malaria, “global warming” is spreading dengue fever, Lyme disease, West Nile virus, arena virus, avian flu, Ebola virus, E. Coli 0157:H7, Hanta virus, legionella, leptospirosis, multi-drug-resistant TB, Nipah virus, SARS and Vibrio Cholerae 0139. It is doing no such thing.
Only malaria, dengue fever, Lyme disease, and West Nile virus are insect-borne, but NONE are tropical.
Of the other diseases named by the global warming liars, not one is sensitive to increasing temperature. They are spread not by warmer weather but by rats, chickens, primates, pigs, poor hygiene, ill-maintained air conditioning, or cold weather.
Next Lie:
West Nile virus in the US is being “spread through global warming”.
The liars say that West Nile virus spread throughout the US in just two years, implicitly because of “global warming.” It did not.
The climate in the US ranges from some of the world’s hottest deserts to some of its iciest tundra. West Nile virus flourishes in any climate. Warming of the climate does not affect its incidence or prevalence (and it’s getting cooler, anyway).
The music sounds like it came from the movie 2012.
It’s a museum. They have an exposition about the excesses of climate alarmism of the early 21st century. You just gotta provide the context for your kids yourself.
@David L: You lack imagination.
If you are going to apply for a research grant into the effects of higher CO_2 on plant growth then I suggests you look into something like the effect of high CO_2 on grape sugars and the taste of wine. Or on the growth of hops and its effect on the taste of beer. It is obviously crucial that the wine and beverage industries have this information as soon as possible.
You could then have a fine old time sampling … sampling … mmmm …. sampling …. and pub … er … pubrishering papersh on … um … shhhh … um … on … aaa … the resultsh! … … … Hic!
And all on the public dollar!